Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The end of February, Saturday morning. The softest snow is slowly descending from an empty sky. It appears to come from nowhere, out of the grey. The fields are blanket white. The bare trees’ dark limbs, the cedars’ bulky body are clearly defined by the contrasting lightness that garnishes them. Cotton-wool balls perch on the pines, then disintegrate as gravity tugs them downward.

Animal tracks snake across the landscape, sinking deep into the yielding surface. The birds are quiet, on low energy, observing. The silence is all-consuming. It is a winter scene of delicate grace, transitory in nature. Temperature changing, sunlight bursting through, wind whipping up will transform it. The moment is nature’s gift which stirs this human soul. If only more souls could see it and share in the wonder…

On the other side of the world, buildings are lives are turned upside down by convulsions from deep in the earth. The young Nazca tectonic plate moves violently under the South American Plate. The ground shakes violently and a tsunami ravages the coastline in a display of mammoth upheaval, voices scream in terror, cracks appear, houses and highrises collapse, waves demolish villages. Instantaneously, the devastation is colossal. Communication with the outside world is dead, concentrating the mind on the surreal scene. On the other side of the world, snow is falling silently on cedars…